[SIDESTORY] Morbit Oneshots

[Zenthis]

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Imperfect Reflection - 2020
Ringor Mortis + Zenthis, general morbit
CW: discussion of deaths
A glance at alternate timlines

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Timothy sat down at his desk with a cup of tea and a book, the hallucinations that had started back when he saw that... thing had been getting darker and he felt the need to do something relaxing.

 
The first page of this chapter was familiar, but the second...seemed off. It didn't line up with the plot thread established even in the last few pages, and the character names weren't consistent at all.

 
Timothy blinked and sighed, "Not this again," they mumbled. They had hoped that it would calm down long enough for them to read a book but it seemed that even that was being made difficult. They closed the book with a frown.

 
The title of the book seemed to blur slightly, the author's name completely different.

 
They frowned, pushing the book away from them and rubbing their temple. "Stupid hallucinations won't even let me read today," they said under their breath.

 
One of their hands seemed to move in vision alone, their actual hand staying put- it fumbled around, searching for something in their bag.

 
Timothy winced, they knew that whenever they saw that big of a difference that their vision was about to get weirdly disjointed.

 
Their weird not-hand finally found a notepad, sloppily getting it on the table and starting to scrawl in almost illegible handwriting.
Wh are you mesing up my book??!

 
They stood in surprise and turned to start walking away, but they could somehow still see their desk and notepad. "It's never been this bad before..." they mumble to themself.

 
Oh god please st dow

 
They stopped. They weren't entirely sure why, but they decided to do what the hallucinations asked and sat back down.

 
Head hurts. Plea look at paper

 
"Okay, okay!" They said and looked back at the paper.

 
Thank you hurts when you move too much. Makes me dizzy

 
"You're welcome I guess?" They say, still unsure what to make of this.

 
Talk bac to me. Write

 
They grabbed a small whiteboard they had next to their desk and wrote on it. like this?

 
Yes. Oka good glad that works

 
this is going to be they paused, hard to explain to my therapist next week

 
No kiddig. Mine keeps tryin t put me on drugs for it bt all they do is mak me tired

 
yeah same they blink and quickly scribble; wait what even are you?

 
Tim. What are you?

 
Timothy. you know, you're awfully chatty for a hallucination

 
I'm a person

 
could've fooled me

 
Hey if I dint think you were a prson I wouldntve trid this

 
what is that supposed to mean?????

 
You hav to be a person or a ghst or somethin not a hallucination so don't call me one

 
ok I guess? "This is getting really weird." wait are YOU a ghost?

 
No, I'm Tim

 
oh yeah? if you're not a ghost then how can you see what I'm writing?

 
Same goes to you buddy, hw are you seein what I'm writing

 
I was assuming you were doing this

 
Im not controlling you

 
I didn't say you were

 
Ok lets step back and figur this out. Your name is Timothy. Mine's Tim. Idon t know if thats a coincidnce

 
well you say you're not a ghost, what are you then?

 
Told you. I'm a person.

 
what do you look like?

 
Pockitt, short, lng hair

 
same I guess

 
Then its not a coincidence

 
They took a deep breath before continuing to write, not a fan of where this was going, what are you implying?

 
What if Im you? Or you're me?

 
ok I think you lost me, or should I say you? :P They sat back pondering how strange it was to be joking with this... hallucination didn't feel like the right word anymore.

 
I don know what I saw that day but all of a suddn I started seeing what you see

 
seeing what I see? is that what's going on? I started seeing things when I saw that weird... horse... wheel... bug... thing. did that thing somehow do this to us?

 
I thin so.

 
people said my left eye changed color, so I guess it checks out? it's been hard looking at it in the mirror to check for myself though

 
Same here acually

 
yeah its weird and yellow now, apparently it clashes pretty hard with my wardrobe

 
Actually the blue works pretty ok with mine so

 
wait

 
Wait what

 
my eyes are blue. or were both blue I guess

 
I mean yellows mine so I just figurd we swapped

 
oh. sorry for calling your eye color weird

 
It's ok it's not as cool as blue

 
thanks I guess? they took a deep breath before writing, so are we like, weird mirrors of eachother or something?

 
I think so. Whatever tha was messed us up

 
no kidding. wait, if my hallucinations have just been what you see this whole time they trailed off, needing to steady themself before writing; I'm sorry. I'm so, so, sorry.

 
It's... There was a moment of hesitation. Fine.

 
if we are actually mirrors of eachother, then I know enough about us to know that that's a lie

 
I mean

 
what

 
I don't want to think about it much anymore. It happened

 
okay, I won't pry, but I guess I'm here if you need me? not like we can really go anywhere

 
We need to figure out how to make this a little less hellish at least

 
well, if our eyes are swapped, they pause, I'm gonna test something they put their hand over their left eye.

 
I can't see

 
They moved their hand back down and wrote howre you writing then?

 
I can see through my eye but not yours

 
I figured, I was joking

 
They did the same in turn, covering their left eye.

 
ok I can't see what you're doing anymore but my depth perception is shot

 
They removed their hand. So eyepatches are out

 
not necessarily, it's not like this is any better than a lack of depth percetion

 
Good point

 
I think I would prefer the eyepatch actually, what about you?

 
I guess I could get used to it. We're gng to get weird questins though

 
we could say the color change was an early symptom of an infection that caused blindness or somthing

 
That works. People are already concerned though

 
yeah, gonna feel bad if people are like, nice to us after this though

 
It's something we just have to deal with. People are already overly nice to me as is with the whol...yea

 
Timothy frowned, but chose not to reply to that part, well, since we still need eachother for now, I guess we should go get some eyepatches
 

---

 
Timothy frowned at the can in his hand, "Ugh, this stuff is getting more expensive every day, I swear," they muttered.

 
Tim had been quiet lately, almost enough to be concerning- even prompting him to talk hadn't gotten much response.

 
Timothy sighed and put the can back on the shelf before deciding to try to contact Tim, they grabbed the remote in their pocket and pushed the button a couple times. The light that they had installed under their eyepatch flashed twice, code for checking in.

 
There was no response, even with the time being perfect for talking- Tim had rarely ever missed a contact around this time of day.

 
Timothy hurried up his grocery trip, trying not to get too worried about Tim. Tim's tough, he reasoned, tougher than me anyway, he's probably fine... right? Maybe he's just busy.

 
Tim didn't respond for the duration of the trip, radio silence until long after Timothy had gotten home- right before bed, even.

 
The light flashed twice.

 
Timothy scrambled to grab the remote that he left in his coat pocket. When he got to it he flashed it three times, signaling that he wanted to talk with the eyepatches off.

 
Tim responded with three flashes in turn, the vision returning in his eye as he took the patch off.

 
Timothy grabbed his whiteboard and started writing furiously, where have you been? I've been worried

 
Busy

 
well is everything okay?

 
Yeah, I'm fine

 
are you sure? you've barely checked in at all

 
There was a moment of hesitation before he wrote again. It's nothing worth worrying about

 
when was the last time you were telling the truth when you told me that, Tim? I'm not stupid

 
It's the same as it was last week so it's not worth mentioning

 
that's not how this works and you know it

 
I'm not going to bother you about it when you have your life to get to

 
oh my god are you still stuck on this? WE ARE FRIENDS I WANT TO HELP YOU

 
I don't know how to get over it

 
I know, and I'm here for you

 
I just don't understand why it had to be them. Why it happened to me and not you. He stopped writing for a solid moment. I don't want it to have happened to you obviously but

 
no don't worry, I knew what you meant.

 
So much of our lives are the same but why that? Why did that change?

 
I have no idea, I honestly didn't even think that old god's cult was a problem anymore

 
What?

 
sorry I guess that was kind of insensitive

 
No, I mean, what do you mean old?

 
you know, the one that used to be god of consumption? before beacon took control

 
Used to?

 
yeah? you know, spit. our moms must've sung you those uh... really morbid nursery rhymes/cautionary tales about her. you know in hindsight those things are kind of messed up to sing to kids

 
She's not dead here

 
oh fuck

 
I didn't think things could be that different between us our worlds whatever this is

 
yeah that's they paused, unable to come up with words that felt suitable why doesn't wane kill her? that's what happened in my world

 
Went the other way here

 
what do you mean it went the other way?

 
Wane got eaten

 
that... doesn't seem logistically probable. at least not unless spit is way bigger in your world

 
No she's way too small for it to be realistic. Just what they tell us in history books

 
so wait, if wane wasn't around to give solitude to chella, then did wax pick who got it?

 
Wait why does another god have Solitude

 
wait are you telling me that rein is alive there too?

 
What the hell happened in your timeline

 
it was several hundred years ago and I wasn't exactly the best history student but rein got killed helping wane with the big horror vent incident in bluster. wane went and killed spit afterword because no one could really hold her back anymore

 
So is Velvet alive?

 
yes? why?

 
So Spit didn't eat her either. This is so weird

 
spit did what.

 
Supposedly she ate Velvet and Wane within like. A week of each other

 
that's uh... that's a pretty strong metabolism

 
I never thought it made any sense myself

 
I guess it doesn't really have to make sense, they're gods. maybe they can just do that?

 
I guess??? He set his pencil down for a moment, thinking hard before picking it back up. So, the cult isn't as big of a thing then.

 
theres a few groups of them here and there, you mostly just have to avoid the woods and dark alleys. ever since beacon let grind get involved with getting rid of them there've been less and less though

 
That explains why things seemed more...peaceful, looking through your eye

 
well it's still your eye, its just in my head now. but yeah I guess I know why what I thought were my hallucinations were so... uh... I don't know how to describe it in a way that doesn't sound rude

 
No offense taken

 
They pause for a moment, considering something before writing, now, I don't want to come off the wrong way here, but how much of this discussion was genuine interest and how much of it was you trying to avoid talking about how you feel again?

 
Bit of both

 
you can't just not talk to anyone about this. have you found a better therapist yet?

 
No offense but I'm pretty sure your timeline has better therapists than mine if your Consumption is better off

 
nah I think good therapists being hard to find is pretty much a universal constant. also I think the ones over there probably get more practice

 
Guess that's a good point. Haven't found anyone yet though...I don't know if I will, honestly


well, you can't just go on not talking to people about it

 
I'm talking to you

 
yeah, that's progress. I mean it

 
I do feel a little better. Mostly confused over how different everything is but...it's something


yeah I'm gonna have to think about... all of this. can you promise me that you'll try a little harder to keep in touch

 
Sorry about that. I'll try

 
it's fine, I just worry about you

 
Yeah well you're a big sap

 
Timothy smiles haha yeah... I guess I am